Warwick Oral History Network 18 May 2015 Analysis &
Interpretation Andrea Hajek University of Glasgow
[email protected]
Slide 2
Oral history How do we analyse and interpret oral history data?
How do we use it? How do transform it into data? 1. What do people
draw on when they recollect? 2. Forms of analysis 3. Practical
steps
Slide 3
What is oral history? Alessandro Portelli (1991), Death of
Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories Alistair Thomson (1994), Anzac
memories: putting popular memory theory into practice in
Australia
Slide 4
What is oral history? Luisa Passerini (1987): record of a
cultural form memory draws on pre-existing storylines and ways of
telling stories memory draws on public versions of the past as
these have been transmitted through a wider, cultural memory
(films, photographs, etc.) when constructing their own personal
accounts composure: achieving personal composure, coherence or
equilibrium (Penny Summerfield/Graham Dawson)
Slide 5
Interview with Mara (b. 1957) Well, I was pregnant with my
second daughter, I was already seven months pregnant, I had my
daughter, my first, who was three years old, not even... no, she
wasnt three, she was two. I was without a home, without a job and
even without a man. This is to say that I had had this second
daughter with a different man, and we had already broken up, so I
was alone! Without a home, without a job, without money, without...
It was a dramatic situation. So in the womens health centres,
amongst the various people... Because in the health centres, what
was so nice about them, was precisely that there were so many
people involved, right? An quipe, so many people working, and so
there was this social worker; and so I turned to the social worker
of my... who was an historical feminist, I think very close to the
Communist Party, judging from... from the language, from how she
was dressed. But thats a conjecture of mine, anyhow. I dont know...
So, at the time one had the possibility to ask for financial
support in difficult situations, the Commune would give it to you;
and so I went to her to ask if... to apply, what I needed to do to
apply; and she replied... I went to see her two or three times, and
she replied that I wasnt a borderline case, because I was educated
and so I had had all... I had had all the opportunity to abort, so
if I hadnt done it it was my own choice, women had fought to gain
abortion... She said it like that, yknow? Her literal words. "Women
fought to obtain abortion. You are an educated person, so if you
find yourself in this situation its your own f*ing business." Well,
she didnt say f*ing, she said it was your problem.
Slide 6
Interview with Mara (b. 1957) Discomposure: personal
disequilibrium Its a partial denialwhen we talk about memory, about
what happened, Im not going to [] promote the Vulgate that the
feminist movement has fought for abortion, for daycare centers, for
divorce, and then maternity is never thereIm just not in for
it.
Slide 7
Interview with Marisa (b. 1959) Discomposure: personal
disequilibrium I used to tell myself: look, Ill throw it [the
child] out of the window. What? I mean, the other women, they didnt
even want to hear this, but I thought it, but then they all did,
you know! Because we all wanted to throw them out of the window.
Because it was normal [to think like this].
Slide 8
Silences Passerini (2006): Something may be unsaid because its
memory has been actually repressed by trauma, contrast with the
present, conflicts of individual and collective nature or because
the conditions for its expression no longer (or do not yet)
exist.
Slide 9
Interview with Giuliana (b. 1954) AH: But have you had other
problems with your son or...? Gianna: With my son? Look, what can I
say? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. And I was
lucky. He was a really good boy... Well, I guess I should say that
we both loved him very much, the only difference between me and my
husband being that he didnt have a breast to feed him, but other
than that it was equal. I wanted to have him so much, so when I had
him...even if I suffered like hell, because I was really sick when
I was pregnant... Not horribly bad, but I did throw up for 4
months! AH: [...] Everyone I spoke to have had problems with their
[male] children when they started going to school, then they would
came home and say... I dont know, why do I need to tidy my room if
my mates dont have to do that... I mean, they encountered these
problems where they would clash... so to speak, with society or
with the media that put these pressures on... Giuliana: Yes, youre
right. It hurt me a lot when my son, in one of the first essays
that he had to do, those... you know where they make you write
those little sentences, he said: daddy designs, and mommy irons. So
I went to him and said: excuse me but when the hell did you ever
see me iron any clothes? And he replied, but the teacher showed us
things, and so...
Slide 10
Forms of analysis Elizabeth Tonkin (1992): oral genre Genre in
this sense labels an agreement between writer or speaker and reader
or listener on what sort of interpretation is to be made. Penny
Summerfield (1998), Reconstructing Womens Wartime Lives Luisa
Passerini (1987), Fascism in Popular Culture
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Practical steps Problem of inserting individual lives into a
whole, in order to make generalizations: Single life-story
narrative Collection of stories Narrative analysis Reconstructive
cross-analysis Then evaluate interviews as: Texts (identify
storylines, images, ideas etc) Types of content (biography,
opinions, how it felt) Evidence/reliability: check for internal
consistency; cross- check information with other sources; place in
wider context
Slide 12
References Hajek, A. 2014. 'Defining female subjectivities in
Italy: motherhood and abortion in the individual and collective
memories of the 1970s womens movement in Bologna.' Women's History
Review, Volume 24, no. 4, pp. 543-559. Hajek, A. and A. Davis.
2015. Oral History. In: James D. Wright (editor-in-chief),
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences,
2nd edition, Volume 17. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 284290.
Candida-Smith, R. 2002. Analytic Strategies for Oral History
Interviews. In: Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein (editors),
Handbook of Interview Research. Context & Method, Thousand
Oaks-London-New Delhi: Sage, pp. 711-731. Clifford, R. 2012.
Emotions and Gender in Oral History: Narrating Italy's 1968. Modern
Italy, Volume 17, no. 2, pp. 209-221. Thompson, P. 2000. The Voice
of the Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomson, A. 1990.
Anzac memories: putting popular memory theory into practice in
Australia. Oral History, Volume 18, no. 1, pp. 25 31. Passerini, L.
1987. Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Experience of the
Turin Working Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Portelli, A. 1991. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories:
Form and Meaning in Oral History. Albany: State University of New
York press. Summerfield, P. 1998. Reconstructing Womens Wartime
Lives. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Summerfield, P.
2004. Culture and composure: Creating narratives of the gendered
self in oral history interviews. Cultural and Social History, 1,
pp. 6593. Tonkin, E. 1992. Narrating Our Pasts: The Social
Construction of Oral History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
